In response to constant changes of Internet applications and multimedia functions, computer technologies also advance continuously. These days hardware such as hard disk drives, optical disk drives and disc burners have become fundamental facilities for users or server providers. Power supply also has to provide a greater amount of output power to meet the growing demands. The basic power of 250 W in the past is not enough now. Nowadays, 450 W, 500 W or even 600 W is required to support all the computer hardware being used. To enhance the power supply to meet the requirement of different electronic devices at the rear end, power output mode of the power supply also has significant changes. Connectors are widely used as power output ports these days. Such an approach, besides enabling users to select different power transmission lines, does not have wiring on the unused power output ports, and also can enhance air circulation in the computer to facilitate heat dissipation.
R.O.C patent Nos. M260929 and M256525 disclose a power supply with a connector on the rear end to serve as power output ports (referring to FIG. 1 of M256525 for wiring of the conventional power supply). Patent No. M260929 further proposes a design of composite output ports that has a power transmission line connecting to a same output port and branches to two or more connectors through a joint wiring approach to couple with electronic devices at the rear end.
While the aforesaid patents offer some improvements over the conventional power supply, they do not provide feedback power monitoring to maintain power quality. In fact, operation voltage actually delivered to the electronic devices from the power supply could drop due to line resistance of different transmission lines. Adopt the connector for the power output ports has constraints of potential specifications resulting to the pins of the connector. Without the power feedback function, the actual operation voltage is not sent back to the power supply to correct the fluctuating output voltage. The unstable output power quality directly affects operation of the electronic devices at the rear end.